Book Description

Excerpt from Human Physiology: Prepared With Special Reference to Students of Medicine But organs do not act each for itself: they are, as a rule, associated in the performance of a common function, and thus associated form a system. Thus the group of organs which are concerned in digestion forms the digestive system; those which together accomplish the circulation Of the blood, the circulatory system. An attempt has been made to distinguish an apparatus from a system; the former being defined as a group Of organs concerned in the performance Of a common function, no matter how dissimilar their structure, while organs similar in structure irrespective of their function would be regarded as a system. Similarity Of function, under this definition, would characterize an apparatus, and similarity Of structure a system. The organs whose functions are to digest food would be regarded as an appa ratus, constituting the digestive apparatus the bones, on the other hand, would form the osseous system. Practically, however, such a differentiation is of no use, and the two terms apparatus and system may therefore be used interchangeably. Branches Of Physiology. - From these elementary con siderations it is evident that physiology has to do with living plants and animals Only - that is, with organic structures and inci dentally with their products. That branch Of the science which treats of the functions Of plants is denominated Vegetable Physi ology, and that which deals with the functions of animals is called Animalc Physiology. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.